I had earlier asserted that Agriculture and Agricultural Industries Minister, Datuk Ismail Sabri, Home Minister Dato’ Seri Zahid Hamidi and their fellow Barisan Nasional UMNO leaders are among the most ardent disciples of the Goebbels school of propaganda.
In a quote often attributed to Goebbels himself, “if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” Our BN-UMNO Ministers and leaders are certainly suffering from the “Big Lie” syndrome, believing in their own malicious lies.
The latest unbelievable racist rant from Datuk Ismail Sabri for example only proved that their cohorts lie so much in public and in social media to victimize their political opponents that they have actually come to believe their own myths and fabrications.
Datuk Ismail Sabri first accused the Chinese of hiking up prices of goods and services, and hence called for the “majority” Malay community to boycott Chinese businesses. He then asserted that the popular “Old Town Kopitiam” chain is owned by the DAP Member of Parliament, Ngeh Koo Ham, whom he accused of being anti-Malay and anti-Muslims and hence, should be similarly boycotted.
These were clear cut lies which have been circulating in the UMNO-owned print media and the social media for some time. They have also been refuted many times.
Despite the sheer audacity of the racist rant and lies, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak has inexplicably decided that Datuk Ismail Sabri is worthy of his defense and protection.
The Prime Minister’s Office has issued a statement explaining that the Agriculture Minister’s comments were “meant to rebuke traders who refuse to lower the price of goods”.
“The rebuke he made was targeted to all traders and not just traders from a particular race. Besides that, he suggested consumers use their purchasing power to force traders to reduce their price of goods,” the statement clarified.
The reply by the Prime Minister is a blatant attempt at pretending Datuk Ismail Sabri never said what he said, despite the latters no holds barred attempt to unjustifiably blame the Chinese community. The complete failure by the Prime Minister to even gently rebuke Datuk Ismail Sabri over his incendiary racist statement is both appalling and disappointing given his rhetorics of promoting “1Malaysia” and the Global Movement of Moderates.
Instead, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak is only following the Goebbels playbook, where the latter wrote in his article entitled “From Churchill’s Lie Factory” that “when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”
It is obvious from the above example, that the honourable Prime Minister would rather look stupid and ridiculous, than to make any effort to denounce blatant racism and malicious lies spouted by his own Cabinet Members.